Here's the beginning of a funny joke: “Thurston Moore gets into one In the womb session.” Here's the beginning of another funny joke: “Too many indie rock bands try to sound like Thurston Moore walked into a In the womb session.” Influences become funny when they're hollow, “worn on the sleeves” like a designer on a mannequin. (You'd better get in line.) In the right hands, homage is a jumping-off point—less about the past than the weird, weird familiar thing he grows up in. Few understand this better than Voyeur, a New York band that runs the city's history through a mirror. of fun and emerges with a twisted, well-thought-out take on decades-old alt-rock squall. Something is wrong with youtheir latest EP is No Wave meets Nirvana meets the sweaty solipsism of lonely subway rides. It's not funny. it's the work of a band worth taking seriously.
In an underground New York context, Voyeur almost qualifies as a supergroup—you might recognize singer-guitarist Jake Lazovick as Sitcom, bassist Joe Kerwin as the mastermind behind the newsletter You Missed It, or singer-guitarist Sharleen Chidiac as the founder of the show. space competition. Their approach to post-punk is as glitzy as it is scrappy, like the strange affection a city dweller might feel for abandoned buildings. Similar dichotomies—ugly and lush, dirty and romantic, serious and slightly understated—are the scaffolding of their formula. But what makes them so jarring is how deftly they move between extremes. Uglytheir debut EP, released last February, channeled their alt-rock past so deftly that it sometimes seemed like really good parody. Take “Big Decision,” in which a bubbly Lazovic plays the frantic incel over a fee-fi-fo-fum rhythm section. It seems Kurt Cobain stumbled into the wrong rehearsal space, he said what the helland started jamming with Steve Shelley. It also sounds incredibly solid—like a band that's been playing together for 20 years, not one.
This is true everywhere Something is wrong with youa sequel that keeps alt-rock influences at the fore, but reroutes them in riskier ways. It's more insular than amorous Uglya wintry antidote to the roaring romantics of this work. The icy sheen of this new EP befits a New York lineage of oddball bands churning out epics from emotional distance. It's one thing for a two-guitar line-up to arm both six-strings as a wall of scuzz, but another—slightly more difficult—thing to make both guitars intertwine restlessly, a tightrope of arpeggios and sickly sustains. The interplay makes even the simplest songs like “Spirit” feel imbued with something sinister: a creeping sense that at any moment, it could all come crashing down. Sometimes it does, and the deconstructions are shocking and wonderful, like watching a controlled demolition. By the final minute of “Look Through You,” a slow guitar showcase that veers into “The Diamond Sea” territory, the lone survivor screams, wailing like an eternal police siren.
